Photo Op
by Partly
Summary: A fic written for the prompt: Someone stumbles across Oliver training


Annie Dubois hated heights. She never liked going up more than two flights of stairs. Yet, here she was, climbing around dilapidated fire escapes on abandoned buildings in the very worst part of Starling City. And all for a class that she hated. 'Photography as Art' was supposed to be an easy three credits. Snap some pics and make some shit up on why they were awesome. How hard could that be?

Turns out, pretty damn hard. All her pictures were labeled "snapshots" and were constantly at the bottom of the "pyramid of quality". Six weeks, twelve classes, the bottom row: _every damn time_.

Well, no more. Nope. This time she was going to move up on that damn pyramid. She'd spent the whole weekend coming up with the perfect concept: the abandoned and decaying buildings of the Glades in the shadow of the gleaming and self-indulgent skyscrapers that made up the center of the city. It seemed like the type of thing that would qualify as art.

As she waited for the sun to set enough to really set the glass and steel of the skyscrapers ablaze, she studied the abandoned warehouses before her. Graffiti stained walls, trash strewn alleys, broken windows – it was a picture of all things lost and abandoned. It would just be a couple of minutes more before the area she was in would be completely in shadow. Just a minute more and she'd have her perfect photo op.

A sudden movement on the street caught her attention. A figure walked quickly along the street; the fact that he had both a coat and shoes were proof that he didn't belong to this neighborhood. She moved to a better position and adjusted her camera. An extremely good-looking man came into focus. His clothes were high end and he was young enough to be a college student. He crossed to the warehouse on the opposite side of the street, unlocked the door and disappeared inside.

Annie frowned. What was he doing here? Why did any building in this area even need a lock? Exactly what was going on? The front of the building was solid steel, even the door didn't have a window. As she watched, lights flipped on somewhere on the right side of the building, casting eerie illumination on the darkness that was gathering in the alley. So there were windows. She hesitated in the gathering gloom. Her shot would be happening soon, all she had to do was wait, take her shot and get the hell out of Dodge. Anything else would be beyond stupid.

She abandoned her perch and made her way down the fire escape, quickly heading into the alley next to the building. The light came from windows high in the side of the warehouse, a steady yellow glow, dimmed by the grime and soot that covered everything in this part of town.

It took her another five minutes to find a safe way up the fire escape and peer in the window. She didn't know what she expected to see, but it certainly wasn't this. The warehouse floor was a combination of Batcave and gymnasium. Weirder and weirder. But where was... a door opened and the man she'd see earlier came into the room.

Annie momentarily couldn't catch her breath. He was stripped to the waist, padding in on bare feet. He moved quickly over to the mat on the side of the room and dropped into some graceful stretches. She watched him work for several minutes before she remembered that she had a camera.

"Damn!" She moved to a better vantage point and brought him into focus. She literally couldn't think for a moment. Why the hell was this guy hiding out in some derelict warehouse rather than sharing his beautiful awesomeness with the whole world. Abs like that deserved to be displayed on every billboard, everywhere.

He stood and started moving in what Annie could only guess was some sort of martial art. Beautiful, elegant and provocative. Three moves later she amended that thought – Beautiful, elegant, provocative and dangerous. She followed him with her camera, finally seeing past his Michelangelo-perfect body. She couldn't get a clear view of his face – and with a body that good, it didn't matter what his face looked like – but she could tell that he had a couple tattoos. Wait, those weren't all tattoos… what the hell?

He moved out of her line of sight and it took her almost five minutes to reposition. She was a lot closer to the windows now and had to work to stay out of the light, but she finally could see him again.

He hung by his hands from a bar, suspended several feet above the floor. The posts the bar was setting on had a series of notches along them, all the way up to the ceiling. It looked as if he could put the bar up on any of them – although Annie couldn't think of any reason he would want to. Right now, he was just hanging there. Once she got the camera focused, she could see that she was right. Those weren't all tattoos. They looked like… scars. _What the hell?_ She pulled back and seriously considered leaving. Who walked around with scars like those? Who _lived_ after getting scars like those? She chewed her lip, glanced down into the now dark alley, then looked back to the window.

He was still hanging there. Although, he seemed to be higher up than she remembered. But he couldn't be, could he? Just when she thought that she was imagining things, he gathered himself and jumped – just fuckin' jumped, bar and all – up another rung. He didn't pause, leveraging himself up three more notches. She moved forward, fighting to keep him in her camera view. She followed him for five more jumps, before she'd leaned too far forward, lost her balance and banged into the window.

The crash seemed impossibly loud to her ears. She threw herself back out of the light and against the wall. Fighting to hear anything over the sound of her pounding heart. Nothing. She counted to 300. Still nothing. She finally worked up enough courage to move back to the window.

She was relieved to see him still in the room. He was stretching again, then he grabbed a towel, slung it over his shoulders and headed to a door at the back of the room. She watched until he disappeared. Obviously he needed a shower – she knew she did.

She dropped back into the shadows, not quite believing her good fortune. She was damn lucky he hadn't heard her. Still, better safe than sorry. She headed down the fire escape.

It was only once she reached ground level that she realized that she hadn't actually snapped any pictures.


End file.
